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Features » September 14, 2007

Trending Toward Inanity (cont’d)

What’s more amazing is this: A page earlier, Penn argues that the rise in lefties has nothing to do with there being more lefties, and everything to do with more permissive parenting. In other words, where children used to be trained out of left-handedness, now parents “shrug their shoulders, saying it’s okay.” So not only does Penn fail to prove that lefties are genetically different in some important way, he also suggests that the gene pool is no different, and that there are as many of them around now as always. It’s a fallacy atop an error built around something that isn’t happening.

This isn’t an isolated example. In a chapter called “Aspiring Snipers,” Penn explains, “It’s the rare moment when a poll stops me in my tracks and reorients my understanding of things.” One such poll was conducted last fall, when Bendixen and Associates asked 601 young Californians what they’d be doing in 10 years. About 1 percent–so, a handful–said they’d be snipers. Certainly, that’s an odd reply. But Penn never mentions that the Bendixen poll had a margin of error of plus-or-minus 4 percent–four being a larger number than one. Additionally, it’s meaningless without further study. Anyone in the age bracket would attribute it to video games, or snipers being, let’s admit it, quite cool. Yet Penn, based on no follow-up interviews, detects a “new patriotism,” and a desire “to master complex mathematical formulas like how distance or wind might affect the path of the bullet.” This simply isn’t professional work. (It is bitter, though. Penn concludes the chapter by complaining, “Ask anyone in politics and they will agree–they face ‘snipers’ every day who are trying to find one flinch, one out-of-place word to put on Drudge or YouTube.” It takes a special sort of self-regard to compare the danger of being embedded on YouTube to being hunted down in urban warfare.)

Elsewhere, Penn conflates one poll on attitudes toward the religion of Islam with attitudes toward American Muslims. At times, he mixes percentages and absolute values for scare effect, as when he darkly warns that if one-tenth of one percent of our population–300,000 people–turned to al Qaeda, it would be “more than enough to destabilize our society.” Sometimes he just discards data, as when he conveniently decides to ignore his evidence that churchgoers reject female ministers and speculates that “consensus and compassion may be on the outs right now, but they are bound to make a comeback,” which is all the argument he needs to say “we are also ready for the first female Billy Graham.” And on, and on.

All this is in service of his concept that “microtrends” now govern our world: “It takes 1 percent of people making a dedicated choice–contrary to the mainstream’s choice–to create a movement that can change the world,” Penn writes. Why 1 percent? Who knows? Penn doesn’t stick to it himself. Sometimes, it’s one-tenth of one percent, as in his al Qaeda example, or 10 percent, as with lefties, or sometimes it’s the microtrend of–I kid you not–the tens of millions of Americans who moved to the suburbs in the 20th century. Toward the book’s end, Penn says the “magic of the 1 percent threshold” is that “ten people with bazookas can overcome 1,000 people with picket signs, but they can’t overcome 10,000 people with picket signs.” Chew on that one, grasshopper.

As microchapter after microchapter passed, reviewing this book began to feel like dropping a grenade into a barrel of fish. But Microtrends is illuminating. Pollsters occupy a uniquely powerful space in American political discourse: They bring science to elections. Armed with heaps of raw data, they elevate their opinions into something altogether weightier: Conclusions. When an organization sends out a press release saying the organization is right, it’s ignored. When a pollster sends out a poll showing the electorate agrees, ears in Washington perk up.

The enterprise has always been dodgy. Populist pollsters reliably discover that the electorate thirsts for more populism. Conservative pollsters routinely discover a small government consensus pulsing at the heart of the body politic. When the libertarian Cato Institute commissioned a poll of the electorate, they found–shockingly–that the essential swing vote was made of libertarians. Remarkably, whenever a politician or self-interested institution releases a poll, the results show a symmetry between the attitudes of the pollster’s employer and those of the voters. But Penn’s book shines light on this phenomenon: If he is the pinnacle of his profession, then the profession uses numbers as a ruse–a superficial empiricism that obscures garden-variety hackery. And that’s a trend worth worrying about.

"astonishingly"..."astonishingly"..."I was shocked"..."shockingly"
Someone please subdue this feller and take his loaded 'astonishingly' away from him; someone might get hurt. Blunt trauma to the brain.
"Penn would not only be failed..." The insipid book in question, from the evidence offered, most certainly needs a lambasting; 'tis a pity the job was assigned to someone who, astonishingly, writes so shockingly poorly. I wish you would be failed.Posted by rhizome on 2007-11-03 01:41:29

The point made by test100 about margin of error at the extremes is true of real statistics, but we are talking polling here. They can call polling "scientific" all they want, but it lacks the truthiness of statistical analysis of raw data such as home prices, sports stats, income distribution, etc. Polling can't really determine a truthful stat from a false one. There are poll respondents that purposefully answer the questions with lies, and others that don't really pay attention to the question and answer incorrectly. Additionally, polling by telephone is quickly emerging as flawed in the distribution of population due to increasing use of cell phones that aren't called by pollsters.Posted by Jon B on 2007-09-16 03:43:17

That one percent thing is pitiful. Penn knows that this is a representative democracy depending on voting for politicians. One percent can't vote anyone into office and in fact won't even get their one percent displayed in polls on TV. That one percent is utterly powerless so how does Penn attribute influence to that statistical anomaly?Posted by Jon B on 2007-09-15 05:37:29

I was given a galley of this book before it came out, from a local bookseller, who assured me that I would find it fascinating.
Unfortunately, it was utterly idiotic and unreadable, had to skip over pages & pages just to get through. Penn is looking at little tiny stories without any ability whatever to see the larger picture. A real shame.Posted by Mr_Anonymous on 2007-09-15 04:36:21

test100 is right about the margin of error being much smaller for poll results at the extremes, but it doesn't take away from Klein's point about Penn's dubious tactic of investing his 1 percenters with disproportionate influence.
Actually, I don't know why Klein mentioned the margin of error at all, apart from its (incorrect) use as a gotcha moment. It doesn't add to the piece at all, which is strong enough without it.Posted by Eddie visits on 2007-09-15 02:12:58

fyi
Klein is right: 4 is larger than 1. But that has nothing to do with the validity of findings in Sergio BenDixon's polls in the 1 per cent range. Margins of error near the boundaries of 0 and 100 are treated quite differently than the margin of error near the midpoint of 50. (because -3 could never be a possible answer). Klein might want to look that up since it shows such a lack of basic understanding of statistics that it suggests the rest of his observations are about as accurate.Posted by test100 on 2007-09-14 22:31:24

Its a sad day in America if these are the individuals attempting to help shape the direction of this country...
Mr. Penn would be of bigger service helping Microsoft try and position itself against Google or helping General Motors manage the potential upcoming strike against the UAW... LOL
It speaks volumes about the candidacy of Hillary Clinton that Mr. Penn has these little shallow views of Americans...
MicroAmericans... create some soft political fluff and get their votes...
Yup... that is why Mrs. Clinton polls best with lower income older folks... same crowd you can easily merchandise a new shampoo or car to...Posted by Cate on 2007-09-14 13:37:59

Nice article - check out a write up and photos of Mark Penn, and his guests at his recent book launch party in Washington DC.
http://www.washingtonian.com/blogarticles/people/capitalcomment/5199.htmlPosted by bencoffeyclark on 2007-09-14 11:12:37